Guide - Enterprise Programming with F#

F# is an excellent choice for enterprises.

The benefits of F# for enterprise development are:

Compatibility - F# is completely integrated with the .NET platform and is a fully supported component of Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio. You can continue to use your favorite C# libraries and maintain your existing development processes.

Low risk trials - It’s easier to learn F# than you might think. You can easily try out
F# for non-critical development tasks such as testing and scripting without committing to wholesale change.

Faster development time - F# code is generally three times shorter than C# code. And F#
has many little conveniences that save coding time, such as very succinct type definitions,
with immutability and equality by default.

Fewer errors, less maintenance - Many common errors, such as nulls or empty collections, are easily avoided in F#.
F# classes cannot be null, exhaustive pattern matching means that edge cases are not overlooked,
and units of measure can be used to avoid accidental mixups of incompatible numbers.

F# code is engineered for testing - Functional programming does not use state and the logic tends to be linear,
so it is very easy to test subsystems in isolation easily (using NUnit or your favorite test framework),
and there are no tangled webs of dependencies.
In addition, F# supports property-based testing with FsCheck.

Better domain modelling - F# has a powerful type system that can be used to model domains accurately.
“Choice” types can model business cases more conveniently than inheritance, and business rules
can be designed into the type system so that you get “compile-time unit tests”, eliminating the need
for many tests that would otherwise have to be written by hand.

Taming complexity - F# has a number of features to help you manage complexity and improve performance such as:
a safer Async library,
a built-in actor model that’s easier than using threads,
safe parallelization with immutable data, and more.

Improving developer morale - F# is a fun language to program in, and F# is a great way for developers
to learn new skills that will improve their skills in other languages, such as C# and JavaScript.

This guide includes resources related to enterprise programming with F#. To contribute to this guide, log on to GitHub, edit this page and send a pull request.

Note that the resources listed below are provided only for educational purposes related to the F# programming language. The F# Software Foundation does not endorse or recommend any commercial products, processes, or services. Therefore, mention of commercial products, processes, or services should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation.

F# for testing .NET systems

Fewer errors, less maintenance

Many common errors, such as nulls or empty collections, are easily avoided in F#.
F# classes cannot be null, exhaustive pattern matching means that edge cases are not overlooked,
and units of measure can be used to avoid accidental mixups of incompatible numbers.

F# code is engineered for testing

Functional programming does not use state and the logic tends to be linear,
so it is very easy to test subsystems in isolation easily (using NUnit or your favorite test framework),
and there are no tangled webs of dependencies.

Using F# for domain modelling

F# has a powerful type system that can be used to model domains accurately.
“Choice” types can model business cases more conveniently than inheritance, and business rules
can be designed into the type system so that you get “compile-time unit tests”, eliminating the need
for many tests that would otherwise have to be written by hand.

Using F# to analyze data

F# also has powerful tools to analyze and process data, such as Deedle (for data and time series manipulation)
and the R type provider which makes it possible to use all of R’s capabilities from the F# interactive environment,
including on-the-fly charting and data analysis.

Taming complexity

F# has a number of features to help you manage complexity and improve performance such as:
a safer Async library,
a built-in actor model that’s easier than using threads,
safe parallelization with immutable data, and more.

Agents and message queues

Developer morale

Learning functional programming (via F#) is a lot of fun, and will make your team happier.
Yes, you can’t have fun all the time. But if you are enjoying yourself, then you are more likely to go the extra mile when needed.

What’s more, using F# may help you attract talented developers. After all, wouldn’t you want to work with people who are having fun?